Heika’s Take: Stars can’t find tying goal late in back-and-forth loss to Blue Jackets

The Stars had a clunker on Tuesday in Columbus.

It happens.

The irony is that this team has been so consistent in a topsy-turvy season that this game sort of smelled like a rotten egg. And as bad as the team played, the lads in Victory Green had a chance to tie the game in the final two minutes, before finally losing a 6-4 contest. It was both depressing and refreshing all at the same time.

“I like the fact that we’re not happy,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of a team that sits third in the NHL at 37-19-2. “We expect to win every night. I think the lesson tonight is we just didn’t play well enough to win.”

The Stars came out of the 4 Nations break and faced a significant task. With no practice time for players and coaches that participated in the tournament – including DeBoer, Thomas Harley, Jake Oettinger, Roope Hintz, Esa Lindell and Mikael Granlund – Dallas played on consecutive nights at the Devils and at the Islanders. They then flew to Columbus to face the Blue Jackets on Tuesday. All three teams are scrapping for a potential playoff spot out East, and all three gave the Stars everything they could handle. Dallas won against the Devils and the Islanders, but seemed to hit a wall on Tuesday.

Columbus was up 1-0 in the first 30 seconds, was up 2-0 in the first five minutes, and had a 4-1 lead midway through the game. When Ivan Provorov put the Blue Jackets up by three, Dallas had just seven shots on goal and was chasing its tail for much of the first 30 minutes.

“I think the game came down to our start,” DeBoer said. “We know they’re a quick starting team, and being down 2-0 early in the game, that’s a big hole to dig yourself. I thought we pushed back, but every time we climbed back within striking distance, we made another mistake. There were a lot of self-inflicted issues tonight.”

And that’s unusual for a Stars team that prides itself on details and smart defense. Dallas is playing without Miro Heiskanen, Nils Lundkvist and Lian Bichsel on defense and that is creating some holes. Harley played in the 4 Nations championship game on Thursday in Boston, met the team in New Jersey for Saturday’s game and has led the Stars in time on ice in all three of these contests. He logged 28:24 against Columbus and was actually pretty good, but that’s a lot to ask of a young defenseman.

Mix in the fact that some of the veterans were slightly off and Oettinger didn’t have his best game, and it made for a struggle both physically and mentally throughout the lineup.

“We didn’t have our best,” said center Matt Duchene. “We had some guys going, we had some guys not - myself included. Sometimes, it feels like you’re swimming upstream all night and it doesn’t matter what you do. But you’ve got to find a way to make something happen.”

The Stars actually did that. A minute after Provorov scored, Hintz cut the deficit to 4-2. Then, Jason Robertson tallied his 24th goal of the season and it was 4-3 with the Stars hopping on a four-minute power play late in the second period. Dallas stumbled through that man advantage, and Columbus took a ton of momentum into the third period. The Blue Jackets made it 5-3 early, and then Dallas kept pushing until Mavrik Bourque was able to score with the extra skater and two minutes left in regulation.

Columbus hit the empty net in the final minute, and that gave Dallas just its second regulation loss in the past 11 games.

“You can’t give up five goals,” DeBoer said. “So, between our defending, and I know Jake would probably like to have at least one of them back, it’s hard to win on the road. We’ve usually been a tight defensive team all year, that’s usually our formula for success, and it wasn’t there tonight.”

So was that because the Stars were tired? Was it because Columbus was hungry? Was it because the chaos of the week finally caught up? Probably a bit of all three, but the Stars weren’t happy about it.

“Three games in four nights, but no excuses,” said Bourque. “We’ve got to be better and I’m sure we’re going to bounce back.”

Dallas officially completes a six-game road trip that started in early February and was broken up by the 4 Nations Face-Off. Now, it gets four games at home and the chance to build on a 20-6-1 record at American Airlines Center.

“That’s behind us, and now it’s about how we respond,” Duchene said of the Columbus game. “We want to get back and establish the game we’ve had there. I’m sure we’ll correct some of the stuff we did tonight. We’ve got to be better, and we’ll attack that this week.”

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.